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Chronological Episode Guide
Several extremely obvious Continuity Goofs occurred during Miami Vice's original network run, brought about not by oversights in the production of individual episodes but as a result of the studio tampering with the order in which those episodes were broadcast. The modification of the order of a television programme's season by the studio was a fairly common practice, particularly prior to the 1990s. It usually occurred from a desire to have more striking, hard-hitting or simply better quality episodes shown at specific points, often the beginning, end or mid-point of a season. However, as many television series of the 1980s period and earlier contained little in the way of overreaching plots that crossed multiple episodes, studios often made these changes with little research as to their consequences. Their often brazen alterations the the broadcast schedule meant several notable continuity errors appeared in Miami Vice, many of them painfully obvious to anyone watching the show in the supposedly "correct" broadcast order. Some of the more notable continuity goofs include: *Zito's beard, which he grows for the start of Season 2, continually appears and disappears between episodes for more than half of the season, indicating "The Dutch Oven", "Back in the World", "Definitely Miami" and "Yankee Dollar" were all broadcast earlier than intended. The reasons behind this are not known, although "The Dutch Oven" was originally filmed as part of Season 1 but later held back for the second season. *The most famous continuity goof of the series occurs in "El Viejo", when Crockett's Ferrari Daytona reappears, despite being blown to pieces in the season premiere, "When Irish Eyes Are Crying". "El Viejo" was originally set to be the Season 3 opener, but was held back as it was felt having the Daytona blown up would make a better start to the season. Apparently the studio didn't think about the rather obvious consequences of their actions when they made this change. *Tubbs, who grew a beard for the start of Season 4, is clean shaven in Season 5's "Bad Timing". His beard then reappears in the following episode, "Borrasca", only for him to shave it off during that episode. Even more ridiculously, Switek actually comments on how he looks better now that he has shaved. This change was probably made to accelerate the conclusion to the Sonny Burnett arc, which ends with his exoneration in "Bad Timing". However, Crockett's absence in "Borrasca" is heavily implied to be because he is away testifying to try and clear his name after his actions as Burnett, which also makes no sense when "Bad Timing" is shown first. Notes *While Crockett's Chris Craft Stinger powerboat reappears in some shots in "Baseballs of Death", this is not a continuity goof created by studio tampering, but rather as a result of the inclusion of unused footage shot, presumably, when the Stinger was still in use on the show during Season 1. A reduced budget in later seasons could be responsible, or perhaps problems with shooting new material.